British Challenger 2

Originally posted by Broadsword20068


This is like arguing whether a Porsche is better than a Dodge Viper or a Lamboroghini (spelling?) etc....etc.....you can go on forever.

The Porsche Carerra GT is obviously the best!!

My current tank ranking is:
1. M1A2 Abrams
2. Leopard 2A6
3. Challenger 2
4. Merkava
5. Leclerc
6. T-90
7. T-80

Kontakt 5 has been tested by germany and they failed to penetrate at 2km. i can't remember the source however.

Originally posted by XB70
This has probably been said, but the Challenger is a much heavier tank than the Abrams.
But what we've found out is that the Bradley is actually better in the type of combat we've been involved in. It has a higher confirmed kill count than the Abrams does. Not sure where I saw that, Global Security, I think.

What are you talking about? The Challenger weighs 65 tons, the Abrams weighs 69.

Just because the Bradley killed more vehicles(not just tanks, trucks, cars) doesn't mean it's better. It simply had the opportunity too.

Originally posted by tomcat ha
Kontakt 5 has been tested by germany and they failed to penetrate at 2km. i can't remember the source however.

The M289 penetrator failed to penetrate, which is completely out of service with the US army. With 540mm at 2km it should be stopped by a T-72 with Kontakt-5. The M289A1 I've heard has special considerations to ERA and gets 610mm at 2km. The M289A2 gets 750mm at 2km and the A3 960mm.

The Challenger 1 destroyed just 300 tanks in the Gulf War. While an impressive number on its own, it was hardly more then how many Abrams destroyed. Abrams destroyed over 200 T-72's in a single battle.

American forces were more in number. It's only nature Abrams destroyed more enemy tanks, and Americans generally killed more Iraqis.

Originally posted by Disturbed Deliverer
The Challenger 1 destroyed just 300 tanks in the Gulf War. While an impressive number on its own, it was hardly more then how many Abrams destroyed. Abrams destroyed over 200 T-72's in a single battle.

American forces were more in number. It's only nature Abrams destroyed more enemy tanks, and Americans generally killed more Iraqis.

Are you sure about those figures?
I mean how many tanks where there?

I am positive of those figures because I looked them up just before posting.

Challenger 1 took part in Operation Desert Storm where the Iraqi forces failed to take a single vehicle out of combat while Challenger destroyed roughly 300 Iraqi tanks.

Source - globalsecurity.org...

Another highlight of the war took place when 1 Iraqi Republican Guard Division met up with 1 Marine Division. For the first time the US M1A1 Abrams would duel head to head with the Russian T-72 tank. When the smoke cleared about 200 Iraqi tanks, most T-72's, were destroyed without the loss of a single US tank.

Source - www.geocities.com...

There were some 2,500 Iraqi tanks left when the ground war started.

I don't think Iraq even had that many T-72s...

All 2500 tanks Iraq had during the ground war were not T-72's.

Originally posted by Disturbed Deliverer
All 2500 tanks Iraq had during the ground war were not T-72's.

Some 600-900 were. I've seen those two numbers.

They're were only 300 T-62s and much more T-55s.

I've changed my tank rating. The current tank ranking is:
1. M1A2 Abrams
2. Leopard 2A6
3. Challenger 2
4. Merkava
5. Leclerc
6. Leo 2A5
7. T-90
8. Leo 2A4
9. T-80

has the Leopard 2 had any combat experience?

Originally posted by spacemunkey
has the Leopard 2 had any combat experience?

I believe it was deployed in Eastern Europe somewhere. It may have shot at some guys but nothing on the scale of the Challenger, Abrams, or Merkava.

Originally posted by ShadowXIX
I wonder way the UK went with the Rifled and the US with the smooth bore. What would be advantages to both designs?

[edit on 16-1-2005 by ShadowXIX]

Good question.

Rifled guns can fire HESH (High Explosive, Squash Head) rounds.

They "pancake" onto the surface they hit and detonate, sending a flat shockwave directly forward. On the inside of a tank it will rip out a scab of razor-sharp metal and the flying debris and the scab kills everyone in the tank. It also makes nice pretty holes in concrete.

Unfortunately with new armour (which disperses the shockwave because of the air gaps and the different materials) HESH isn't so good against state-of-the-art tanks. The army here like it so they asked for rifled guns.

Rifled rounds tend to be slightly more accurate.

The disadvantage? it can't fire rounds with as high pressure as you can with smoothbore, and designing APFSDS rounds to work in a rifled gun is a technical nightmare, which we solved with a seperate powder charge and heck-knows-what-else.

The only countries that use rifled guns in their tanks as standard are the British and the Indian armies.

[edit on 20-1-2005 by Cjwinnit]

Originally posted by ShadowXIX
I wonder way the UK went with the Rifled and the US with the smooth bore. What would be advantages to both designs?

On a side note, the Abrams originally had a 105mm Rifled cannon, but changed later to a 120mm smoothbore.

Originally posted by Starwars51

Originally posted by ShadowXIX
I wonder way the UK went with the Rifled and the US with the smooth bore. What would be advantages to both designs?

On a side note, the Abrams originally had a 105mm Rifled cannon, but changed later to a 120mm smoothbore.

Because the Rheinmetall gun was newer than the Royal Ordnance, which first appeared as an upgrade for Centurion.

Discarding Sabot is much, much less effective if it is spinning, that's why the smoothbore. Rifling allows you multi-purpose your gun, you can use your tank as mobile artillery if you want, but with less gun elevation, obviously. Hesh is far more effective against non-tank targets such as blockhouses and buildings, it works equally effectively against re-inforced concrete as it does on steel or aluminium.

The Challenger uses APFSDS - DU (Armour Piercing Fin Stabilised Discarding Sabot Depleted Uranium) and APFSDS - T (Armour Piercing Fin Stabilised Discarding Sabot Tungstenk).

The Challenger I used the APFSDS - DU in Gulf War 1, to record the longest recorded and confirmed Tank-To-Tank kill ever, with a range of 5.1km

Spacemunkey

The 5.1km kill was with a HESH round, not an APFSDS round and it was made by a Challenger 1.

Sounds like the same kind of argument like the one with the Canadian (AM) sniper killing a person on the longest recorded range

Has anybody ever played Wargasm? it's an older game from 1998 I believe, it's very very fun.

Actually I was kinda upset you could only play with the M1A1 and not the M1A2, you do get to use the Challenger 2 and the FCS (based on early proposal which includes Railgun and EMP gun)

I remember in that game you could use HESH rounds too, with virtually all types of Tanks...it's not that realistic at all, since your Coaxial machinegun is a 25mm and infantry use 20mm guns...lol!